SACCO: So what direction will it be, Lee?

All he did was lead the team to its first regional berth in nine years.

Sure, with the setup of three teams in the Southern Valley moving on, you could say that’s not much of an accomplishment. But that matters little to the players who enjoyed every moment of ending an almost decade-long drought.

So how was R.E. Lee baseball coach Bobby Humphrey rewarded for turning that program from a laughing stock into a team that made the Region III tournament?

He was fired.

Canned.

Kicked to the curb.

Or so he says. Of course, the R.E. Lee Athletic Department officials wouldn’t know how to call this paper back if they had our phone number tattooed on their forearms. Humphrey told Sports Editor Robert Sisk that school officials said they were “moving the program in another direction.” We can only assume that’s the truth since officials, as of Monday, still had not returned Sisk’s calls.

Players, who feared reprisals and declined to be named, said they were told the same.

It’s sad, really. And it has nothing to do with winning or losing.

Much like Fort Defiance officials’ hackneyed answer to wrestling coach Terry Waters’ firing last year (they started this ”new direction” fad) and the “no comment” they gave regarding football coach Dale Spitzer’s ouster months later, the frustration among the student-athletes at these two schools has to be building up.

If it’s not, it should be.

What have the kids done to be fed non-answers when they want to know why a coach has been let go?

The Lee administration’s “different direction” refrain makes no sense.

In the world of sports, there are only two directions, and Humphrey had the Leemen going up.

So what does that leave?

Even sadder are the baseball players who said they feared talking to the media because they said things can get political

How can a school system teach American history based upon freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion, then turn around and make athletes feel that there would be reprisals if they exercised their basic rights as Americans? You know, expressing their displeasure at a situation where, to be honest, all they want are answers.

Humphrey had his own little ways, no doubt. He wasn’t the quietest of coaches and bragged on his players like they were a contingent of future MLBers.

But, hey, isn’t that what a coach is supposed to do?

Then again, shouldn’t a coach expect to keep his job after guiding his team into the regionals?

Ah, but this is R.E. Lee. A school with the best basketball fans in the area, and maybe the state, who were told by their administration that a “start-up-the-bus” chant would get them banned from extracurricular events.

Part of a Staunton school system that sent out an e-mail congratulating “legendary R.E. Lee baseball coach” Paul Hatcher when he announced his retirement from teaching. Yes, they meant the basketball coach.

R.E. Lee could have stopped this stupid runaround given to student-athletes who bring in money to the schools. Yet officials chose to follow Fort Defiance’s lead.

Now, back to the point: What direction is that baseball team moving in, R.E. Lee?

Follow Jim Sacco, Augusta County’s only award-winning sports columnist, on Twitter.